Aislinn Hunter

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The World Before Us

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Publisher's description.  Haunting and intricate, a tale of interlinking disappearances across history, where the present meets the past and old ghosts linger in the mind. A lost child, an escaped asylum inmate, a lonely young museum curator, and a centuries-old mystery waiting to be uncovered...

Daring and mesmerizing. A haunting, irresistible story and an urgent mystery about what it means to pass through this life. Absorbing, luminous and powerfully human

An original and intelligent novel about the past and its persistent power in the present

Sensitive, melancholy, sharply observant. A work of great power

Strange and absorbing . . . I relished this book

Penelope Lively, The New York Times Book Review

Beguiling, richly suggestive . . . a tantalising mystery

A complex, subtle, and utterly haunting meditation on memory, history, and mortality. This book is magnificent

Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven

Jane was fifteen when her life changed for ever. In the woods surrounding a Yorkshire country house, she took her eyes off the little girl she was minding and the girl slipped into the trees - never to be seen again. 
 
Now an adult, Jane is obsessed with another disappearance: that of a young woman who walked out of a Victorian lunatic asylum one day in 1877. As she pieces together moments in history, Jane uncovers a tangled story that has been buried for more than a century, and finally confronts her own past . . .

'A tantalising mystery... beguiling and richly suggestive' Metro 
 
Jane was fifteen when her life changed for ever. In the woods surrounding a Yorkshire country house, she took her eyes off the little girl she was minding and the girl slipped into the trees - never to be seen again. 
 
Now an adult, Jane is obsessed with another disappearance: that of a young woman who walked out of a Victorian lunatic asylum one day in 1877. As Jane pieces together moments in history, forgotten stories emerge - of sibling jealousy, illicit affairs, and tragic death . . . 
 
'Strange and absorbing . . . I relished this book' - Penelope Lively, The New York Times Book Review 
 
'Sensitive, melancholy, sharply observant. A work of great power' - Guardian 
 
'Ambitious, inticate . . . cleverly innovates while tipping a nod to classic Gothic tropes: dynastic rivalries, crumbling country houses, madhouses and vanished girls' National Post (Canada) 
 
'A brilliant work of humanity and imagination, artful and breathtakingly beautiful. It will continue to haunt long after you have finished reading' Helen Humphreys, author of Nocturne 
 
'Powerful, thought-provoking, haunting and haunted . . . Reminiscent of A.S. Byatt's Possession, it forces you to look at the world - the people around you, the objects they hold dear - in a different light' Globe and Mail (Canada)

Aislinn Hunter is the author of a novel, Stay; a collection of stories, What's Left Us; and two collections of poetry, Into the Early Hours and The Possible Past. The World Before Us is her first book of fiction in twelve years. After travelling to London and Edinburgh over the past few years to study for a PhD, Aislinn Hunter now lives and teaches in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The World Before Us

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Publisher's description. Haunting and intricate, a tale of interlinking disappearances across history, where the present meets the past and old ghosts linger in the mind. A lost child, an escaped asylum inmate, a lonely young museum curator, and a centuries-old mystery waiting to be uncovered...

Daring and mesmerizing. A haunting, irresistible story and an urgent mystery about what it means to pass through this life. Absorbing, luminous and powerfully human

An original and intelligent novel about the past and its persistent power in the present

Sensitive, melancholy, sharply observant. A work of great power

Strange and absorbing . . . I relished this book

Beguiling, richly suggestive . . . a tantalising mystery

A complex, subtle, and utterly haunting meditation on memory, history, and mortality. This book is magnificent

About Aislinn Hunter

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